Who I Am…

In NYC, when I finished my Meisner training with the legendary William Esper, he said, “Don’t stop here. Go. Work with other teachers. Other methods. Learn as much as you can.”

I followed his advice, and went on to work with Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, LAMDA’s Norman Ayrton, some great Actors Studio method coaches (including Sandra Seacat), and also studied Michael Chekhov, Viewpoints, Loyd Williamson, Fitzmaurice, Linklater and Alexander. My teaching methods are also greatly influenced by director/teacher R. Stuart White, director (& husband) Dan Bonnell, and in recent years, by the teachings of Elizabeth Kemp and Kim Gillingham.

I had the great luck to work with artists like Eartha Kitt and the RSC's co-founder and Shakespeare teacher John Barton.

My own personal technique is strong, cultivated from the best of all the others. I lead from that technique these days, as I have watched it consistently transform enthusiastic young actors into highly skilled, nuanced and beautifully volatile artists.

I spent many years at the historic Circle Repertory Company (NY home of David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Tennessee Williams and Lanford Wilson, as well as its visionary artistic director Marshall W. Mason and other great directors such as Joe Mantello, and actors including Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, Mary Louise Parker, John Malkovich and on and on).

Today, I coach students in Los Angeles, and around the country and world via Zoom. My students appear regularly on film, television, on and off Broadway, and at the National and other theaters in London and around the UK. They are accepted into the best college conservatories, have gotten into the world's best acting schools (Juilliard, LAMDA, RADA, Guildhall, The Lir, Royal Welsh, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, etc.). They are also consistent winners of YoungArts, Spotlight and Jimmy Awards, as well as Presidential Scholar nominees and winners.

I teach classes both online and in person, currently in Altadena, CA, where classes remain very small. I also teach and coach with students across the country and around the world, have regular online classes for students in the UK, and am available to do master classes across the globe.

I am on the faculty of the prestigious Colburn School of Performing Arts in downtown Los Angeles, where I co-teach both an Acting the Song class and audition-only high school musical theatre intensives. CLICK HERE for schedule of classes, and HERE for the Colburn faculty bio.

What I Believe

How I Teach

What I Teach

What I Believe…

Is your current technique actually serving you?

Or is it in your way?

I believe that an actor must have a truly personal technique, one that comes from really knowing one's personal body and psyche. I believe that the imagination is a shallow stream that leads us to the far more powerful and surprising collective unconscious, and I believe that one can train oneself to use both in a way that shifts imaginative circumstances into truth.

To do this, I believe that you must develop a rock solid sense of truth, that you must LEARN to know when you are in truth, and develop a strong point of view. But I also believe in letting go of boundaries and limiting beliefs — so that you can soar.

I believe in working from a heart and gut-centered impulse. But I also believe in working from the power of the pelvic floor, and in intelligent crafting of character and circumstances, as well as a detailed, specific performance.

I believe in an embodied process. That you never ARRIVE at being a good actor. That you will always be growing, stretching and learning about yourself and your craft.

How I Teach…

My classes are very small, very intimate. As my student, you will feel safe, nurtured and inspired to keep taking risks, going deeper and trying other ways of looking at things.

I move from technique to technique, following the energy and flow of both the class and the individuals in it. But again, my own personal techniques are strong, cultivated from the best bits of other great teachers. And I lead with that set of techniques as I help you learn to know yourself.

I am tough. I will ask a lot of you. But I am first and foremost loving and accepting of everything that you are.

In my classes, you will change. Within a month, you will become a new actor.

My students consistently say that JUST when they think they have arrived, I help them see a new beginning to be explored. (This is why professional directors and casting directors request my students. And why heads of college programs are watching out for them.)

“Come to class. Leave your brain at the doorstep. And shift.”

You will transform.

What I Teach…

Developing acting craft is a personal journey, one that includes building skills, your own sense of truth and your point of view. In my class, you will discover who you ARE — what makes you tick, and how your physical, emotional and energetic bodies work, so that you can incorporate all of that into your technique.

You will learn to make everything you say personal and specific to you —and, oh yes, you must make it personal to who you REALLY are, not an idea of who you wish you were or fear you are not. This does not mean getting stuck inside yourself. It is your own personal source of imaginative work, your own connection to the unconscious and to your own magic -- and it will make you sparkle EXTERNALLY as well as internally.

Some find that this personal truth works best when it is drawn from your actual life. Some find more spark from imagined circumstances. Some need to work from a combination of brain and heart. Some from a body that learns to let go of the brain. Others work from specific parts of the body -- the pelvic floor or from following energy from chakra to chakra. All classes are designed to help you figure out the specifics of this. How all of this can work in YOU.

My goal is always to help you find the way that YOUR body craves — so that you will find YOUR way of working. And with a host of techniques to choose from, there are always lots of ways into this process.

And you don’t have to stop there. Because I also teach Shakespeare and Elizabethan/Jacobean text from the perspective of many of the great teachers.

You will have the opportunity to grow specific and multi-layered on-camera technique, and learn to craft your auditions from the body and heart, not the brain.

And you’ll learn styles -- classical, musical theatre, comedic, dramatic and contemporary. You will learn to act a song.

And to work with text from the playwright's perspective. To deepen your understanding of text and form. And your technique will be strengthened with scene work.

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